Bill C-57 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act

This enactment amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to allow officers to refuse to authorize foreign nationals to work in Canada in cases where to give authorization would be contrary to public policy considerations that are specified in instructions given by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.

Immigration and Refugee Protection Act

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my comment and question are for the member for Abbotsford. The reality is that the problem has to a large extent been solved and there are quite a few problems with this proposal.

However, since the member is from Abbotsford, let me say that dealing with issues like this really takes oxygen and the time of the House away from issues such as those he should have some concerns about given his moralistic stance.

This relates to the Mennonites. Approximately 50,000 Mennonites went from Canada to Mexico. The position of his government on this particular issue, which I hope he has a chance to influence, is that the Mennonites who went to Mexico had religious marriages and church weddings. Many of the Mennonites did not have a civil ceremony in Mexico. The situation is that derivative citizenship, which affects tens of thousands of them, is not passed on to the offspring of Mennonites who had a church wedding but failed to have a civil ceremony.

The Conservative government has indicated that it is going to be dealing with issues related to lost Canadians. Mennonites fall into a category, but the government has said that in dealing with the problem of lost Canadians it is not going to deal with the problems of Mennonites who lose derivative citizenship because they did not have a civil ceremony while they had a religious ceremony.

I know that the member comes from an area that has a fair number of Mennonites. I would like to ask him what is he going to do to get his government, supposedly the champion of religious institutions, to stop discriminating against religious marriages, which affects approximately 50,000 Mennonites with regard to their derivative citizenship.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for recognizing the Mennonites and the role they play in Canada. I happen to be a Mennonite. I do not know if the member knew that, but I am. I understand very well the issue of the Mennonites who left Canada and went to Mexico. I understand this particular issue.

Unfortunately, the member mischaracterized our government's position on this. It is unfortunate that he is trying to introduce that issue into something that is quite different, which is the trafficking of human beings into Canada, which is of course in Bill C-57.

What is even more disappointing in the member's question is that he refers to the debate we are having in the House today on the trafficking of human beings into Canada as taking oxygen and time away from the House, as if the issue of human trafficking is insignificant and not worthy of the House's consideration.

I think the member is going to have to reconsider those comments. I do not believe that is what he intended to say, but we have to clarify that point. Today's bill addresses the issue of trafficking human beings from other countries into Canada and then those trafficked victims being exploited in Canada. The bill addresses that. We as a government are getting things done.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say to my colleague that he may have gone too far in his attack on the member for Kitchener—Waterloo. My colleague from Kitchener—Waterloo makes a non-partisan contribution to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, and what he was saying was completely accurate.

I would like to ask the member who had the floor about Canada's existing legislation against trafficking. Can he explain what provisions for trafficking already exist in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and in the Criminal Code? Could he explain what is not working and what the new bill would accomplish? I would also like him to explain why Canada has still not ratified the migrant worker convention, which would ensure that the rights of workers are better protected.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this bill, of course, is not a migrant worker bill. This bill actually closes a loophole or a gap in our laws that address the issue of temporary worker visas for those who come from other countries.

Under the current legislation, which was not changed by the previous government to close this particular loophole, the minister has a positive discretion to allow people to come into Canada. What is not in the legislation right now is a negative discretion, and I believe the member knows that.

We are trying to specifically address the plight of those who are being exploited right within Canada. We as a government made a commitment not only legislatively but financially in our last budget to address the issue of human trafficking within Canada. We can only do so much within Canada. What we can do, we are going to do.

We are going to follow through with it because there are people in Canada from around the world who may find themselves in poverty, in difficult circumstances, who human traffickers can get their claws into. There are a few countries around the world who will pay a lot of money to have these victims brought into their country where they will be exploited.

I have yet to find one Canadian who, when the bare facts are laid out and there are no politics at play, will say they do not want this to happen. I would venture to say that most sensible Canadians support this legislation. They do not accept human trafficking in Canada and they want us as a government to do everything possible to fulfill the commitment that we made to address this scourge across our country.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to continue on the line of questioning that the member was just addressing and that is the international realm of this problem.

We all know, of course, that human trafficking is a problem not only in this country but in other countries as well. I am reading a report that has to do with organ harvesting and it is somewhat of a grizzly situation that we are encountering. The efforts to combat it are working internationally.

My question to the member is this. How would this type of legislation be helpful to other countries? How would this possibly send a message to other countries that are dealing with the same problems and are possibly even involved in human trafficking? How can we send a message that this is going to stop and that Canada is going to be at the forefront of that direction?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question because he raised an issue that I was hoping to raise in my initial speech but did not get around to it because of time constraints.

My colleague is right. Canada has an opportunity to be perhaps a beacon of hope around the world. In fact, we are known around the world as being one of the great defenders of human rights. Our Prime Minister has gone out on a limb to defend human rights around the world. People around the world are taking note of that.

Foreign workers are being brought into Canada in an attempt to exploit them through a so-called legal process. When other countries take note of what Canada is doing in the way of stopping this, they are going to say that Canada is doing something right. They are going to say that we are standing up for human rights and protecting the most vulnerable in our society. They are going to say that Canada is sending a message for them to do the same thing.

This is a good news bill. We are sending a strong message to the rest of the world that we are going to be a beacon of hope.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to join in this debate.

Let me say that at the citizenship and immigration committee there has been a real lack of legislation coming to us from the government.

We recently dealt with Bill C-14, the international adoption bill. Even though the government made a lot of hay about recycling a bill that was before the House under the Liberal government, it has held it up for well over a year. We have very few bills coming before us in committee.The committee, nevertheless, has been spending a great deal of time dealing with very serious issues that need to be addressed.

The bill that is before us today is probably the least serious of something like over a dozen issues that we have identified as a priority. We are disappointed that we are essentially dealing with a bill, the political theatrics of which tries to delve into a problem that for the most part has been solved. We are also concerned about the moralistic tone it takes on.

If the government wants to speak in code to its supporters and say it is against strippers, I would suggest that it introduce a bill in the House to amend the Criminal Code and put forward that amendment. It should not try to be moralistic with back door bills to try to solve a problem which, for the most part, has been solved as far as it pertains to strippers being able to come into this country.

I want talk about some of the other issues that we have been dealing with. We have been dealing with undocumented workers. This has been raised in debate. It is a problem that has been before the government and the government has chosen to ignore it.

When we deal with the issue of undocumented workers, instead of 10 visas that might have been granted in 2005 for strippers, exotic dancers coming into the country, we are talking between 200,00 and 500,000 people who are working in the underground economy because of the dysfunctional nature of our current points system that determines who gets to come to Canada.

I say it is dysfunctional. We need people in the building trades. They cannot get in under the points system. There are many other occupations in which we have a shortage right across the country, and those people cannot come to Canada under the points system.

We heard talk about agricultural workers. It was not too long ago, up around Abbotsford, where the previous speaker comes from, where we heard about members of the Indo-Canadian community getting killed, not on the work site but getting to the work site. It shows us to the extent that agricultural foreign workers are not protected.

We heard about the challenges for live-in caregivers, their working conditions, and how they are virtually indentured to work for an employer. We do not have regulators. We do not have inspectors checking out their working conditions.

We hear about employers being charged every once in a while in very spectacular cases, but the reality is that we are not doing enough to ensure that those people are protected.

Getting back to this bill and getting back to my challenge in terms of talking about stopping strippers coming into this country and using the Criminal Code to outlaw stripping, if it is unacceptable for foreign workers, surely it would be unacceptable to Canadian workers. I do not think the government really has addressed that.

Luckily, I have checked the media and this bill received the kind of coverage that it deserved. For the most part, most major media have dealt with the bill as a political bill, a moralistic bill, and really quite a joke.

The Canadian Council for Refugees says the bill does not address the issue of dealing with trafficking in human beings. As a matter of fact, it falls far short. It essentially says:

The government’s focus on “strippers” betrays a moralistic approach. Instead of passing moral judgment, the government should work on ensuring that non-citizens’ rights are protected and that they have the freedom to make informed choices about their own lives.

The bill fails to address the root problem of the existence in Canada of jobs that humiliate and degrade workers. Work permits can only be issued by visa officers after the employer’s job offer has been validated by Human Resources and Social Development Canada (HRSDC). Why is such work available in Canada if it humiliates and degrades workers?

If Conservatives really believe what they are trying to do, I say to them to pick up my challenge and come in with a bill that addresses that particular industry.

I mentioned there are many issues we have been dealing with at committee and one of the issues was lost Canadians. I drew particular attention to what is happening to the Mennonites in terms of their derivative citizenship. I find it rather sad that a party opposite which has the member for Abbotsford, who is a Mennonite, the member for Edmonton—Sherwood Park as well as the President of the Treasury Board, that they have not brought the plight of the Mennonites to their caucus. They have not had their government make any changes that are so very necessary.

As I said before, the basis of denying derivative citizenship to Mennonites who move from Canada to Mexico is solely on the fact that these folks, with a church wedding, failed to have a civil wedding. Can members believe that? People get married in a church in Mexico and their marriages are not recognized by the government and we deem their offspring to be born out of wedlock.

That is a terrible smear to put on the Mennonites. I really hope that those members, who I have named, will speak up in their caucus and make this a priority issue because it is having an impact, not just on one, two, three or 10 families, but it is having an impact on thousands of people in this country as well as tens of thousands of people who are being denied their rightful derivative citizenship in Mexico. They have ties to Canada but they are told they were born out of wedlock and therefore, they are not entitled to Canadian citizenship.

The other group we dealt with, a group that is of great concern to me, particularly when the government talks about supporting our troops, was a group of war brides and their children. For those who do not know who they are, they are the wives our Canadian soldiers met overseas in Holland, England or someplace in Europe when they were fighting for this country in the second world war. We had just under 70,000 war brides and their children's citizenship is at risk, particularly if a child was born out of wedlock.

While the government promised that it would bring in amendments, those amendments do not apply to these folks. It is not going to apply to Canadian veterans of the second world war who we have been honouring as a nation because the government does not see it as a priority.

At the citizenship and immigration committee we listened to heart-wrenching stories about how people are fighting for their birthrights because they have found out, after living in this country for over 60 years, that they are not citizens and the government refuses to move on that and to change the legislation.

I spoke in the House about Joe Taylor, the son of a Canadian veteran who went to Europe to defend this country and help defend western civilization. He met his girlfriend in England. They were involved and she became pregnant. When Joe Taylor Senior went to his commanding officer to ask for permission to marry, his commanding officer said no because he was going to France to fight and that Canadians did not want to be responsible for widows.

Mr. Joe Taylor Senior went to France and fought but after the war, luckily, he went back to England, married his wife and brought her and their son to Canada. However, because Joe Taylor Junior was born out of wedlock, the government refuses to recognize his citizenship.

Joe Taylor Junior took the refusal of the government to court and, on September 1 of last year, Justice Luc Martineau ordered the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to give Mr. Joe Taylor his citizenship. The judge said that the ground cited by the government that he was born out of wedlock contravened section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The fact that there was an obscure regulation that a person had to apply to retain citizenship if born out of the country, violated section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is the section on fundamental rights.

What did the government do, the supposed defender of our soldiers? On September 26 the government withdrew the court intervenor program, which the House dealt with.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order, I have a tremendously high regard for the member and I know he is very passionate about the things of which he is speaking, but I am wondering if there is relevance to the bill that is under debate at this point.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

I thank the hon. member for his point of order and I am sure the hon. member for Kitchener—Waterloo will come back to the topic under discussion. While I am at it, I would advise the hon. member that there are five and a half minutes left in his time.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if the member were here for the earlier part of my speech he would know that I was talking about some of the important work we have been doing in the committee, how we rank them in priorities and that this legislation would not have made our priority list in terms of what we see as important to get done.

In any event, the government got rid of the court intervenor funding program that allows Canadians to access justice based on the merit of their case and not the size of their pocketbook.

After the government got rid of the program, it turned around and appealed the decision. In appealing the decision, when it asked for an injunction against the court order it also told the court that if it were to lose at the Federal Court of Appeal that it would take it to the Supreme Court.

For the average Canadian to get to the Supreme Court has crippling costs as they relate to having to pay the legal fees. In terms of trying to bring in legislation that has relevance and could unite Canadians, we have a piece of legislation that must have been co-authored by Jimmy Swaggart and plays to a moralistic base.

We will be dealing with this bill before us in committee but I want to alert members on some of the important issues that we are dealing with, and will be dealing with in committee, and that relate to the lost Canadians.

A book entitled Voices of the Left Behind, is a particularly good book dealing with children overseas who are now in their 60s whose fathers were Canadian soldiers. One case that is of particular interest is the case of Mr. Willy Van Ee who is the only status Indian in Holland. He has his recognition as a status Indian but he does not have Canadian citizenship.

If we want to deal with issues pertaining to trafficking in human beings, what we should be doing is taking very seriously the proposals brought out by the Canadian Council for Refugees. If that is the intent of the legislation, it does not do it.

In spite of all the rhetoric that we get from the government side, this legislation does not address those issues. As I read into the record as to what the Canadian Council for Refugees had to say, it will be one of the important groups that will be coming before the committee to give us input on this particular legislation.

In wrapping up I make a plea to the government side to try to bring in legislation that is immediate, that has priority and that has relevance. Also, if the government wants to be moralistic, it should amend the Criminal Code and bring it before the House, instead of trying to do through the back door what it cannot do through the front door.

As I said, the bill will come to committee and, as the parliamentary secretary will attest, the committee works diligently on all bills that are brought before it and we look forward to much relevant legislation coming to our committee where we can make meaningful changes to the operation of both the Canadian Citizenship Act and the Immigration Act because they are very much needed.

We look forward to much relevant legislation coming to our committee and that we can make meaningful changes to the operation of both the Citizenship Act and the Immigration Act because it is very much needed.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for West Nova, Afghanistan; the hon. member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, Saint Hubert Airport.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening to the member speaking with respect to what should have been this bill but he talked pretty much about everything else except this particular bill.

I think it is a diversionary tactic in some measure but I cannot help but mention, with respect to the lost Canadians, that while the previous government was in office for 13 years, and while he was there as a parliamentary secretary and chair of the committee, none of these problems he raised were addressed. For the first time, they are being addressed by our minister in a constructive way and continue to be addressed with proposed legislation.

I just want to quote what some people had to say. Mr. Chapman said, “Obviously there are a lot of things in there that please me. Overall it's a wonderful start. This is a jump forward”.

Another person with whom the member will be familiar, Charles Bosdet, said, “It's the most extensive proposal by far of anything that I know of proposed for the Citizenship Act in the last few years short of actually rewriting the entire Citizenship Act”.

I find it quite interesting that he would think that the legislation before us is a joke. Certainly the previous government permitted foreign strippers into the country regardless of whether they could be potential victims of abuse or exploitation.

I wonder what the member has against legislation that is aimed at preventing temporary foreign workers from being abused, sexually exploited or becoming victims of human trafficking. How dare he say that it is not a significant issue of importance. Many groups have indicated that this type of legislation is long overdue.

Sabrina Sullivan of The Future Group said:

Immigration Minister...has taken an important step to protect women from sexual exploitation and end a program that made Canada complicit in human trafficking.

It is clear that [the] Prime Minister['s] government is serious about combating human trafficking.

She called the exotic dancer program, which existed in the previous government since its inception, “an international beacon of exploitation that eased the way for human trafficking of vulnerable young women”.

The member for Winnipeg Centre said that the door was wide open for this type of wholesale exploitation that existed with eastern European dancers. He said that in reality the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration was still pimping for the underworld and that it was five successive ministers in the previous government.

How dare he say that this is not an important issue to those who are vulnerable and that it should not be addressed?

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I wish the parliamentary secretary had heard my whole speech where I essentially said that the problem has largely been solved. It has been quite properly ridiculed in the media for the political nature of what it is trying to do.

As I mentioned, in 2005 the number of strippers coming into Canada was down to 10. It therefore is certainly not the raging problem that the member wants to talk about. If he is looking for a Conservative connection, let me refer him to his previous government, the Conservatives under Barbara McDougall. The problem was much greater but the reality is that the previous Liberal government, for the most part, solved the problem.

As the Council for Refugees would say, the government's focus on strippers betrays a moralistic approach. Instead of passing moral judgment, the government should work on ensuring that non-citizens' rights are protected and that they have the freedom to make informed choices about their lives.

In terms of his reference to the lost Canadians, both the present minister and the previous minister, since they came into office, had no intention of doing anything. The reason they are doing something is because the committee brought in people to talk about their problems and the heat became too much.

I am very pleased that the government has responded but it still falls short and that is what is very important. It falls short in the case of the Mennonites and it falls short in the case of the war brides and their children. The government is dishonouring, by its lack of action, the service that our men and women rendered to this country when they put their lives on the line in the second world war.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would simply like to make a comment, if I may.

There is literature available on human trafficking, on international crime in particular, that presents every kind of trafficking in the world and a portrait of the victims of these crimes. It also explains the pros and cons of the various measures on trafficking taken by different governments.

It is important to note that prevention programs, like the ones the Conservative government is getting ready to announce, often discourage immigrants from taking the legal route to get work, or discourage them from filing claims.

This may be the solution to processing the backlog of cases in the workers category. However, this will not get women out of their precarious situations in their home countries, where charlatans find sources of potential trafficking victims: women and children.

A number of countries are reacting by fighting this scourge with stricter immigration policies. Practice has shown that this does not necessarily improve the economic situation of women or make them less vulnerable. It also makes things easier for smugglers and traffickers, who find the market increasingly lucrative.

In my opinion, we have to work on the conditions that are conducive to trafficking. That is important. It is therefore necessary for the bill to be considered in committee so that we may debate it. Then we could hear from people who work in the field of international crime, and again table our amendments based on these premises.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I already dealt with the parliamentary secretary from the official opposition.

I agree totally with the critic for the Bloc, who has done wonderful work in the committee and she is one who fights for human rights and the rights of women to be free from exploitation. What we have to understand is when we are dealing with the whole problem of trafficking, we are committed to working with the international community. The bill does nothing to address that.

I think we will greatly benefit from the paper from the Canadian Council for Refugees on its proposal as to how we might do that. In that sense I hope something will come out of this legislation, which I expect will go to committee.